But have you tried this trick, suggested by marko, when faced with a long hold time:

Called the airlines, “pressed 1 for English” and was told that “due to abnormally high volume your wait is… Forty…Five…Minutes. You can stay on the line or try back later…”.

Called back and “pressed 2 for Spanish” figuring 1) the line would be quite a bit shorter 2) a pretty good chance the person at the other end spoke English and 3) once they got me on the line they weren’t about to send me away. I speak very little Spanish.

Sure enough! Within less than 5 minutes a nice lady came on the line, spoke perfect English (with a slight accent), took care of my change and I was on my way.

As braumeister puts it:

Coolest way to beat the system I’ve seen in quite a while.

And Hermit adds weight to the validity of this approach with an insight into the inner-workings of the reservation agent industry:

A friend recently retired as a Spanish reservation agent for American Airlines. He worked the night shift and spent a lot of time reading magazines. He lives in the Dallas suburbs and his native language is English!

Have you attempted this? Did it work? Does it merit its own acronym? P24S?

And of course, the question on everyone’s mind – if you are calling United and falsely claim to speak Spanish, can they refuse to honor anything they might have promised you during the call? 😉 (Not sure what I’m talking about? Read this post by fellow BoardingArea blogger Deals We Like.)